Chapter 118: High Bar

Dorian pulled himself upright and wrapped his arms around her. "Shhh... it’s okay." He held her close, his mouth brushing her temple. "I want you too. I always want you."

Naomi tightened her arms around his shoulders. With Dorian supporting her weight, she began moving properly, sliding him in and out of her with an ease that made both of them breathe harder.

They simply held each other while they fucked. His hands moved over her back, gripping her closer each time she lowered herself onto him. His breathing was ragged against her ear, his control thinning with every movement, but he didn’t try to take over.

He let Naomi set the pace. She shut her eyes tighter. Her body was already building toward an orgasm.

She could feel it gathering low in her stomach, tightening through her thighs as she moved faster.

Dorian felt it too. "Trouble..."

She answered with a broken sound and arched backward. His hands immediately tightened around her waist to keep her steady. Naomi continued grinding against him, chasing the pressure, her head falling back as pleasure spread hotter through her body.

The movement exposed her breasts. He took the invitation. His mouth closed over one nipple. Naomi cried out.

"Dorian!"

His tongue moved over the sensitive peak while his hand held her securely against him. That pushed her over.

She cried his name again, gripping his shoulders as she trembled above him. He held her through it.

He felt every contraction around his cock, every shudder running through her, and somehow managed not to lose himself with her. "Fuck," he breathed against her skin and pressed a kiss against her breast before pulling her upright. "You’re avoiding me," he pointed out.

Naomi shook her head.

"Naomi?"

She shook her head again. He hooked an arm around her and lifted her, turning them quickly and laying her back against the bed.

Dorian came over her. Then he entered her once more. She sucked in a sharp breath and immediately shut her eyes again, biting down on her lower lip. Dorian reached for her wrists, gathered them together and pulled both her arms over her head, trapping them. "What’s so different about me now?" Dorian asked, moving slowly.

"You scare me."

Dorian gave a quiet chuckle. "How?"

"I don’t know."

"Yes, you do." He lowered his face closer to hers. "Talk to me, babe. Just say whatever comes to mind."

Naomi shook her head as if that could stop the thoughts already spilling loose inside her. He pushed forward with one devastating thrust. Her breath broke. "You’re... you don’t do what I expect."

He slowed again, watching her closely.

"You do nice things," Naomi continued, struggling to keep her thoughts together. "You apologize. You say nice things. You confuse me, and you just... you’re infuriating me."

"I’m sorry to disappoint."

"No, no." Naomi shook her head immediately. "That’s not what I mean." Her breathing had become uneven, not only because of what he was doing to her, but because she could feel the walls inside her cracking one after another. "You’re perfect and it hurts." Naomi cried out when he hit a sweet spot, her head tipping back against the mattress.

"Keep talking," he urged.

"Every man I know does something wrong," she said breathlessly. "They do marriage wrong. They do everything wrong."

"My dad. My uncle. I see men at work. Now Jordan..."

A pattern she turned into reality. Men disappointed you. Men hurt you.

"Your uncle?" Dorian pressed, that interested him more.

"He does things that..." She swallowed. "My aunt just endures."

"What things?"

"Things."

"Does he hurt her?"

Naomi’s mind told her to stop talking. She should stop. This was family business. Richard said family business was no one’s business.

But Dorian had somehow opened a door tonight and every answer seemed determined to follow the one before it.

"Not often," she admitted.

He kept his anger buried.

For now.

Because there was another question sitting in his chest, and this one mattered more than all the others.

Dorian’s eyes locked on her face. "Does he hurt you?"

Naomi shut her eyes. Everything else had come loose so easily tonight. The way Dorian confused her simply by being kind when she had spent her life expecting men to eventually become cruel.

But this one truth refused to move. She could feel it lodged somewhere deep inside her.

Dorian waited. Her breathing grew unsteady. "Naomi..." Dorian called softly, reminding her that he was still there, still waiting.

And he’s got her even though it was hard for her to feel anything else but him.

"Not recently," Naomi whispered. "Sometimes he just tries to get me into bed with him."

Dorian’s body stilled for the smallest moment, but she kept talking.

"It’s what I’m used to. This..." Her fingers tightened against him. "This is different. And it hurts because it clouds everything I know. Everything I believe."

And everything you promised your mother.

Dorian kept that last thought to himself. He knew enough now to understand that Naomi had built her entire understanding of love around survival. Around avoiding becoming her mother. Around never allowing any man enough power to destroy her.

And here he was, dismantling those beliefs one decent act at a time.

Naomi finally opened her eyes and looked directly at him. "I don’t want this to end. You’re setting a high bar, Dorian. An unreachable one."

"I think I failed three times to be good at you." he said softly and released her wrists then.

Naomi reached for him. Her palms moved over his chest before her fingers found his tiny nipples and rolled over them.

Dorian grunted. "Fuck..." His hips immediately sped up.

Naomi’s mouth curved faintly. She noticed he liked that. Good to know.

Dorian lowered his head, jaw tightening as he tried to reel himself back in before she completely ruined what remained of him. "Are you close?"

Naomi stared at him. "Again?"

"I’ll have it no other way."

"Oh my..."